


Trifecta

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Series: west-gate: A West Wing/Stargate Crossover [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: F/M, also fic written before major lorne had a name, so he's marcus here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 06:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: They say things come in threes.





	Trifecta

It was late in the evening, and Ellie Bartlet could hardly remember why she had stopped dating years ago.

Of course, if she stopped to think about it, she remembered all the awkwardness when her date couldn’t get over the fact that he was at dinner with the President’s daughter, but she didn’t really want to stop to think about it. She was far too comfortable leaning against Marcus Lorne as they finished watching a movie she’d seen several times already. He’d just gotten back from a week-long excursion off-world, so this was more about spending time with him than seeing the movie.

His fingers ran up and down the curve of her shoulder as the credits began to roll, and Ellie shivered slightly. “Thanks,” he said.

“For what?” She yawned the second word more than she spoke it.

“The company,” he replied. “I know you’ve seen this movie a few times too many.”

Ellie smiled and finally sat up. “Was it that obvious?”

“You’re a terrible liar, Doctor,” Marcus teased.

She ran a hand through her hair, finding tangles and wishing she’d brushed her hair before coming to this lounge with him. He’d asked her right at the end of her shift, and she’d been so eager to leave the infirmary that she didn’t bother freshening up. “Mom always said I was the easy one to discipline,” she replied. “Zoey and Liz can both lie like anything, but I never could. I’d just ‘fess up and get it over with.”

He chuckled softly and reached out to her, to tuck an unruly curl of blonde hair behind her ear. “Do you have to get up early tomorrow?”

“Afraid so,” Ellie replied. “That mission you were on this week brought back work for me. Biology’s got the samples now, but I get them in the morning.”

“Too bad,” Marcus said. “I was going to suggest a late-night raid into Cadman’s stash of junk food.”

“She’s probably still up.”

“That just makes it more of a challenge.”

Ellie put her feet on the floor and shook her head. “What did I ever do to deserve you two?”

“You showed up, mostly. Kate routinely asks herself the same question.” He got up, stretching a bit, and then looked down at her. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

As they walked into the hall, their hands brushed, and on the next swing Marcus grasped her hand in his. He and Ellie hadn’t said anything to make a relationship official, but at least there was no question of interest. Of course, with all the changes to her life in the last two months, she was okay with taking things slowly.

They walked by the control room on their way back to the living quarters, and Ellie spotted Elizabeth Weir in her office and frowned. “Marcus, mind if we. . .”

“Sure.”

She pulled her hand away from his and headed through the control room, Marcus close behind her. “Elizabeth,” she said, walking over the catwalk, “is everything all right?”

Elizabeth looked up as though she were distracted, one hand on her back. Beckett had classed her as “very pregnant” not too long ago, and had told her to stay out of the control room unless absolutely necessary. “Yes,” she replied. “I think so. I just got this feeling that something’s gone wrong.”

Kate Heightmeyer had explained to Ellie shortly after her arrival that Elizabeth had an uncanny knack for knowing when Sheppard and his team were in trouble. In the six weeks she had been there, Ellie had decided that John Sheppard being in trouble was always the best guess. But Elizabeth looked genuinely distressed, and a little pained too. “Elizabeth,” she said, “are you feeling all right?”

“My back started hurting this afternoon. That’s all.”

Ellie’s eyes widened. Elizabeth’s due date was still two weeks away, but her stomach seemed to have dropped since the last time Ellie had seen her. “Elizabeth,” she said, “why don’t we go to the infirmary?”

“Why?”

Ellie looked at Marcus, who seemed to be genuinely confused. “I think you may be in an early stage of labor,” she explained.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m not due for two weeks.”

“I just want to check, Elizabeth,” Ellie replied. “Better safe than sorry, right? If you have gone into labor, we can get Dr. Beckett in, and we can send John a message to get himself back to Atlantis.”

They got Elizabeth down to the infirmary with only a little more protest from her. When they got there, the place was deserted. “Where is everyone?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s been quiet in here for days,” Ellie explained. “A lot of the staff is either off-world or on their way back on the _Daedalus_ now. Dr. Beckett’s been taking advantage of the lull and doing complete inventories. The night shift’s probably in one of the back rooms now working on that.”

While Ellie started pulling various equipment out, Kate Heightmeyer and Laura Cadman stepped through the entryway. Laura had John and Elizabeth’s son on her hip. “Dr. Weir,” Kate said. “This is a surprise.”

“Hello, Dr. Heightmeyer,” Elizabeth replied. “Lieutenant Cadman.”

Peter turned away from trying to eat Laura’s hair at the sound of his mother’s voice. “Momma!” he cried.

“Hi, Peter,” said Elizabeth. “Does Laura’s hair taste good?”

He grinned adorably and then pointed at her abdomen. “Baby?”

Elizabeth took his hand and kissed his fingers. Ellie approached then, putting her stethoscope on. “How’d you end up with Peter, Laura?” she asked.

“Actually, Kate was taking care of him while Dr. Weir came up to the control room for something,” Laura replied. “Carson fell asleep halfway through _The Incredibles_ , so I figured I’d leave him alone and find something else to do.”

“You were watching _The Incredibles_ , Lieutenant?” Marcus asked.

“Hey, I happen to enjoy that movie occasionally.”

“Uh huh. I bet it was Beckett’s suggestion.”

“Elizabeth,” Ellie said, interrupting the others a little more loudly than was necessary, “if you’ll have a seat?”

Elizabeth sighed but did as she was asked. Kate looked at them curiously. “Ellie, what’s going on?”

“Ellie thinks I’ve gone into labor,” Elizabeth stated quite candidly.

“Whoa, shouldn’t we call Carson?” Laura asked.

“Or Colonel Sheppard?” Kate added.

“Elizabeth doesn’t think she’s gone into labor,” said Ellie. “She may not be a medical professional, but I’m not an obstetrician, and it _is_ her body, after all.”

“So we’re not going to cause undue panic by telling people I might be in labor,” Elizabeth continued. “If I am, we’ll make some calls.”

While Ellie got everything situated and started hooking Elizabeth up to a monitor, Laura passed Peter over to Marcus. She and Kate went to a storage room nearby and started dragging out various pieces of equipment that had arrived the last time the _Daedalus_ was in port. Among the objects they got out were an incubator and a fetal heart monitor. Ellie raised a brow at them while listening to Elizabeth’s lungs with her stethoscope. “What?” Laura said. “It’s got to come out at some point.”

Ellie shook her head and turned her attention back to her patient. “Are you feeling any pain anywhere other than your back?” she asked.

Elizabeth started to answer, but suddenly an alarm went off in the room, one Ellie had never heard before. The door to the storage room where Kate and Laura had just been slid shut, as did every other door in the space. “That’s the city-wide alert,” Marcus said. He tapped his earpiece. “Control, this is Lorne.”

Over the intercom, a technician on duty answered, “Lorne, this is control. The control room has locked down.”

Ellie looked up at the monitor and saw that Elizabeth’s heart rate had skyrocketed, though it was coming down again. “Yeah, looks like we’re locked down here too,” Marcus said, “except the door to the main part of the infirmary is still open.”

“Carson had that door removed ages ago,” Laura supplied.

“You’re probably the only ones who can get out into the hall, then,” the technician replied. “Though I don’t think it’d do much good. I’m getting reports all over the city of people trapped in their quarters or labs.”

“What about the gate?” Elizabeth asked.

“We’ve got no control over it,” he said. “Shield’s down. Whatever dials in is coming through.”

Ellie didn’t voice her thought that anything that came in would be just as trapped as they were anyway.

Marcus was about to say something else, but Elizabeth gasped. Ellie looked back up at the monitor to see her patient’s heart rate rising again. “Elizabeth,” she ordered, “talk to me.”

Elizabeth looked up with her eyes wide, her hand low on her abdomen. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think my water just broke.”

An hour later, everyone was still locked down wherever they were. They’d learned from Zelenka, who was trapped in one of the larger labs, that McKay had started running a diagnostic on the city’s entire operating system before John had told him that they had to go off-world on a last-minute diplomatic issue. Zelenka swore up and down that he hadn’t touched the thing, but something had obviously gone wrong.

Beckett had woken up, learned that Elizabeth had gone into labor, and promptly gone crazy. Ellie was fully expecting to get instructions in her ear through all of this, and to be pushed aside as soon as the doors were working again. She decided that this kind of thing must have been why the Ancients had left comfortable sofas at random intervals in the hallways. One never seemed to know when the doors would suddenly stop working, and those couches probably made for nice naps.

She and Kate were hunting through drawers and cabinets for forceps and other instruments that they might end up needing while Marcus was talking with people all over the city, and Laura was walking up and down the corridor with Elizabeth. While Ellie pulled her hair back and started pulling things down from a cabinet, Kate said, “So do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“They make you do everything in med school,” Ellie answered neutrally.

“That wasn’t the question,” Kate pressed.

“Do I know how this works? Yes,” Ellie said. “Have I ever done it? No, not really. But Beckett made all of us brush up on this procedure just in case.” She looked at her curiously. “You?”

Kate shook her head. “I’m a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. I’m not a medical doctor.”

Ellie took a deep breath as she found the forceps. “Well, I guess that means I’m not getting out of this.”

* * *

Cadman had walked up and down the hallway with Dr. Weir until Weir herself insisted on taking a break. Marcus wasn’t entirely certain why she’d been walking in the first place, but had learned long ago not to question a doctor on such grounds. In this case, Ellie looked rather frightened, but determined at the same time. When Elizabeth came back in, Ellie and Kate had managed to get one of the beds prepared to act as a delivery table, following Beckett’s instructions. Marcus, in the meantime, had spent quite a lot of time talking with scientists and security personnel all over the city, and keeping Peter Sheppard entertained. When Cadman was finally done with her walking marathon, he was all too happy to give the toddler back.

Dr. Weir, for her part, looked uncomfortable but remarkably composed. As Ellie and Kate helped her onto the bed, she asked how things were going out in the city. As it turned out, Zelenka had discovered what the problem was – some part of the diagnostic code had erroneously shut and locked every door in the city – but couldn’t fix it without McKay’s authorization code. He was relatively certain that the doors would all open up again once the diagnostic had run its course, but he didn’t know how long that would take. He was mostly hoping that Sheppard’s team would be back before then.

Weir blanched at the reminder that her husband was off-world, but collected herself quickly. “Well, if he doesn’t get back here soon, he’ll have bigger problems than the lockdown,” she said dryly.

“How painfully will he die if he misses this, ma’am?”

“I haven’t really decided yet.”

Her contractions were still irregular and far apart, and apparently not all that painful, as Ellie soon encouraged her to try to get some sleep. Cadman pulled up a couple privacy screens, even though it wasn’t really necessary. Peter was asleep on the next bed, and Ellie looked like she was about to fall asleep on her feet.

Marcus took her hand and led her behind one of the screens. He sat down on one of the nearby beds and patted it. Ellie followed suit. “You need to rest,” he said. “This may take a while, but I imagine you’ll be too busy for a nap in a few hours. Kate can keep an eye on Dr. Weir.”

She leaned against him. “If John knew I was doing this instead of Dr. Beckett, he’d fall over and die.”

He kissed her temple. “No, he’d thank you for doing it so he wouldn’t have to.”

Ellie smiled softly. “I suppose.”

Marcus wrapped one arm around her and pulled her down on the bed with him. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable arrangement possible, as he was rather sure that if one of them sneezed, either or both would fall off. But he draped his arm over her stomach and pulled her close, even as he felt her breathing slow as she drifted to sleep easily. Always one to take his own advice where sleep was concerned, he wasn’t far behind.

* * *

Ellie had given Elizabeth a light painkiller to help her through the early stages of childbirth. She’d heard lots of women refer to this as a wonderful experience, but she imagined that none of them had been trapped in an alien infirmary while all the people they were in charge of, including the doctor who was supposed to be delivering the baby, were trapped elsewhere. But more than that, she needed John back sooner rather than later. His team’s delay was starting to worry her.

She slept fitfully for a while and finally awoke to see Kate and Laura sitting on the floor while Peter ran circles around them. Both women looked worn out, but Kate looked up at her quickly and said, “Dr. Weir, do you need anything?”

Elizabeth shook her head, and then winced as another contraction started. Kate got to her feet immediately, Laura grabbing Peter to keep him from tripping the psychologist. “I’m fine,” Elizabeth said. “Just another contraction. Where’s Ellie?”

Kate gestured toward the privacy screen on Elizabeth’s left. “She’s still asleep,” she explained. “Marcus made her lie down a couple hours ago.”

“And Major Lorne is where?”

Standing up and picking Peter up, Laura smiled as though she were up to something. “Ah,” she said, “Major Lorne got her to lie down by lying down with her.”

Elizabeth looked at the two women in amusement. Normally the romantic scene on Atlantis was of little interest to her – after all, she was happily married and had little time or inclination to butt into the love lives of others – but at the moment, she was willing to let pretty much anything distract her. “How long has that been going on?” she asked.

“There’s some debate as to what exactly is going on,” Cadman explained. “See, the rumor mill says they’ve been together since before Ellie actually got to Atlantis. But Kate and I spend a lot of time with them, and if there’s anything beyond hand-holding, they’ve been really good at hiding the evidence.”

The contraction passed, and Elizabeth sank against the pillows. Kate came up to her and started wiping sweat from her forehead with a soft cloth. “It’s getting kind of warm in here,” she said.

Elizabeth forced a quick smile. “I hope this baby’s timing gets better after this. Can’t get much worse.”

“Well, in his defense, you probably started into labor around dinnertime, from what you told Ellie about the back pain,” Kate said. “So really, it’s just–”

“My good-for-nothing husband who’s to blame,” Elizabeth finished.

“I wasn’t going to use that particular adjective,” Kate replied, “but as long as we’re both talking about Colonel Sheppard, yes.”

Elizabeth sighed, covering her face with her hands. “It’s just a lot to handle at once,” she said. “I’m actually kind of amazed that I’ve been so involved in the day-to-day administration of the city till now. I was half-expecting Carson to put me on bedrest three months ago.”

“Believe me, he thought about it,” Laura replied. “Except he was convinced that you wouldn’t follow doctor’s orders anyway, so he might as well let you keep working.”

She _had_ been taking more time off recently, of course, but only because trying to keep up with a toddler while drawing ever nearer to her due date was making her incredibly tired. John had tried to help as much as he could, but it was either help with the baby or help with the city. Elizabeth was starting to realize that the two were rather frighteningly similar in the amount of attention they required.

“Well,” she said, “have we heard anything new since I fell asleep?”

“Nothing much,” said Cadman. “Zelenka said he was going to sleep for a few hours and then get back to the code, if it’s still running then.”

“Have we heard anything from John’s team?” Elizabeth asked, feeling unreasonably anxious about that.

“No, ma’am,” Cadman replied. “They’re still working on getting control of the gate back.”

Irritated, Elizabeth wondered why in the world a code that shut all the doors would also deny them access to the gate, but didn’t voice this question. Instead, she shifted uncomfortably and reached out to touch Peter’s hand. “Momma play?” he said.

“No, sweetheart, I’m afraid not,” she replied. “Mommy’s tired.”

He looked at her with the kind of skepticism that only a toddler could muster before turning his attention on Cadman. “Lala play?”

“Yes, Lala will play,” Laura replied. “Come on, kid. We’ll find some paper cups or something you can play with.”

As she carried him off, Elizabeth said, “Laura, he does need to sleep at some point tonight.”

Cadman looked at the child dubiously. “Well, we’ll try, ma’am.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

As Laura walked out of sight, another contraction tugged at Elizabeth’s muscles, and she fought to keep breathing. “Dr. Weir,” Kate said, “should I wake Ellie?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “When I need her,” she replied tersely, “we’ll both know.”

* * *

Five hours after she and Marcus had left the lounge and found Elizabeth, Ellie was sitting at the foot of the bed, watching the screen on the fetal heart monitor that Beckett had requisitioned from Earth. “The baby’s doing fine, Elizabeth,” she said. “He’s not under any abnormal stress. You too, by the way.”

“I think I’m under plenty of abnormal stress,” Elizabeth replied. Marcus was sitting next to her, and had held her hand through the last contraction.

“I meant physically.” Ellie glanced at Kate, who was sleeping on the other side of the screen. “Psychologically would be Dr. Heightmeyer’s department.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You know, your mother would probably kill to see you doing this.”

Marcus looked at Ellie oddly. She rarely talked about her family with anyone here but Elizabeth, and only then because Elizabeth knew the family so well. “If my mother were here,” Ellie replied, “she’d be doing this, not me. She’s at least actually done this before.”

“You’re doing fine, I think,” said Elizabeth. “Better than I did when Peter was born. I was mostly trying to stay out of the way when I wasn’t given specific instructions.”

Ellie puffed at a loose wisp of hair to get it out of her face. “I think this is probably going to be a lot cleaner than that was.”

“I hope so,” Elizabeth replied. “Peter’s mother died, and then the Wraith showed up.”

Ellie looked back beyond the privacy screen again, this time to where Laura was asleep sitting almost upright on one of the beds with Peter asleep on top of her. “You’ve not told many people about that, have you?” she asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. “It wasn’t a good day.” She ran a hand through her hair, which was starting to look rather matted. “I was off-world negotiating for mining rights for a mineral that Rodney thinks was used in the production of ZPMs,” she explained. “Major Lorne’s team was with me, actually. I went wandering through the village, and ended up being dragged into a house to help with a baby being born. They had a belief that if a child were born with a stranger in the house, no harm would befall him.”

“Then what happened?” Ellie asked.

“It was horrifying, actually,” Elizabeth replied. “I’d never been that close to a birth or a death, at least not a death by natural means. Peter survived, but his mother didn’t. She was the lucky one, I guess. They handed the baby to me to bless him somehow, and then Major Lorne radioed me to say that Wraith had just come through the gate.” Her voice cracked as she continued, and Ellie could see tears in the woman’s eyes. “Peter’s father begged me to take the baby somewhere safe. I still don’t know how I managed to get to the jumper.”

“Did anyone survive?” Ellie asked quietly.

“No,” Marcus replied. “We had to wait it out there. It was horrible. No one outside the jumper survived, and we could just hear the screaming. But Peter stayed quiet until it was all over.”

“And hasn’t been since, unless he’s asleep,” Elizabeth said with a weak smile.

Ellie got up a little stiffly. “I’m going to step outside for a minute, all right?” she said.

Elizabeth nodded, and Ellie left the room, stepping out to the solitude of the hallway and leaning against a wall. Marcus came out a few moments later. “Ellie?” he said. “You all right?”

She rubbed her eyes. “No, not really.”

He frowned at her, coming close enough to touch her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“This would be hard enough with a twenty-three-year-old woman in perfect physical condition, and if I’d had enough sleep,” she said. “As it is, Elizabeth’s in good shape, but she’s almost forty, this is her first baby, and she has a very stressful life. And I _haven’t_ had enough sleep, and I don’t even have proper assistance, not that you and Kate and Laura haven’t been trying–”

“Ellie,” he interrupted, “calm down.”

“Marcus, I’m scared that this is going to go wrong and it’s going to be my fault,” she replied. “There’s a good chance that I’m going to have to do a C-section before the night is over.”

“Beckett’s not going to let you do that without walking you through it step-by-step,” he said. “You just need to take a deep breath, okay?”

“It didn’t help that she started talking about Peter’s biological mother dying, and then the Wraith showing up.”

“I was there for a lot of that,” he reminded her. “This isn’t going to go down like that day did.”

Her stomach was still all in knots, though, and she covered her face with her hands. “This is not what I signed up for. That’s really all there is to it.”

After an awkward pause, Marcus gently took hold of her wrists to pull her hands away from her face, and then replaced them with his own, holding her chin up. “Ellie, you’re a capable, intelligent, attractive doctor,” he said. “You may not have signed up for this, but you’re more than able to do this.”

Ellie blinked a few times. “What’s attractive got to do with it?”

“Did I say that part out loud?”

“Yes. . .”

“Oh. Must have slipped.”

She gave him a look of mock exasperation, but he just smiled in return. Then he took a step closer and said, “I meant it.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and Ellie rested her chin on his shoulder. They stayed like that for a while, until Marcus kissed her cheek and said, “You okay?”

She pulled back just far enough to look at his face. “Yeah.”

And for no reason, except that she wanted to, she kissed him. Marcus neither objected nor acted surprised. The kiss was gentle and soft and perfect, and almost as relaxing as a shoulder rub would have been at that point.

 _Almost_.

They came back into the infirmary after small smiles and another kiss. Elizabeth was waiting patiently while the other two women and the baby slept on. As they settled back in for the rest of what was shaping up to be a very long night, Ellie said, “Marcus, could you rub my shoulders?”

It turned out that Marcus was as good at shoulder rubs as he was at kissing.

* * *

“Dr. Bartlet, what’s her status?” Beckett was asking over the radio.

Ellie tapped her earpiece. “She’s dilated to eight centimeters,” she explained. “Contractions are three and a half minutes apart, lasting about forty seconds.”

“Aye, she’s in the active phase now,” the other doctor replied.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning if her husband doesn’t get back shortly, he’s going to be a dead man.”

As it was, Elizabeth was doing a good job of crushing Marcus’ hand, and the whole process was making Ellie seriously reconsider ever having children of her own. She didn’t care what her sister had said about forgetting all the nasty stuff once the baby was born. This was really, really unpleasant.

“She’s bleeding more, too,” Ellie continued. “Should I be concerned?”

“Some amount of bleeding is normal,” said Beckett. “She’s supposed to be bleeding more now. But a lot of bleeding could indicate hemorrhaging.”

“Which would be bad,” Ellie said under her breath.

“Yes, which would be bad.” Beckett sighed. “I wish I could do more to help you, love.”

“I wish you were doing this instead of me,” she replied. “Are we sure the Ancients didn’t have transporters like the Asgard beaming devices?”

“The likelihood of me finding one in my room is slim, unless Laura left it. And I certainly wouldn’t know how to use it.”

Ellie thought it was most unimpressive that the Ancients hadn’t come up with some kind of transporter that would take the user to a place of his choosing by simply thinking about it. If she’d had one, she’d be thinking nice thoughts about Tahiti right about now.

Marcus gave her an odd look. He could probably tell that her mind had wandered, so she collected herself. “All right,” she said. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Not that I can think of off the top of my head,” Beckett replied. “Stay in touch.”

“Do you think he’s slept?” Elizabeth asked, her breathing a bit labored.

“No,” Laura said. “Not since he found out what’s going on.”

“How’s your back, Elizabeth?” Ellie asked.

She shifted uncomfortably. “It’s hurting more than it was a while ago,” she said. “Granted, other parts of me hurt worse.”

Ellie smiled wryly. “Marcus, help her sit up. That may help the pain.”

“Dr. Weir,” Marcus said, helping as he was instructed, “Kate gives a great back rub, if you want.”

Despite everything that was going on with her, in her, and around her, Elizabeth managed to give him a disbelieving look. “It was right after I got here, ma’am,” he said. “We dated for about three months.”

“I missed all the good stuff,” she said, almost pouting. “But that was when John and I were discovering all the good places in the city for–”

“Not listening,” Laura interrupted loudly. She was sitting on the floor with Peter, where they were building things out of paper cups. Ellie privately wanted to thank her for the interruption, not particularly wanting to hear about John and Elizabeth’s sex life. She had enough evidence of it before her.

Kate gave Ellie an amused look. “We discovered rather quickly that we were much better off as friends,” she added. “Can you scoot forward, Dr. Weir?”

After the next contraction came and went, Kate started getting Elizabeth to do some yogic breathing exercises. Ellie was unsurprised that Elizabeth knew how to do it already. His services not needed at the moment, Marcus rolled his chair over toward Ellie and patted her knee. “You okay?” he said quietly.

She nodded. “Just tired.”

He stayed there with his hand on her knee until the next contraction started. But while Elizabeth gripped his hand, Ellie noticed that his eyes were more often on her than on Dr. Weir. It didn’t help her concentrate, but it was bizarrely comforting anyway.

* * *

Dr. Weir had tears streaming down her face and most of the sounds she was making weren’t words of any sort, but Laura had never been more intimidated by her boss than she was while the woman was in the final half hour of labor. Ellie hadn’t had much in the way of pain killers available, so this was likely to be the most excruciating birth Laura would ever see.

Not that she planned to make a habit of watching births. Once was probably enough.

There was more blood involved in this than Laura would have thought, but Ellie wasn’t freaking out about it. In fact, as the night had progressed, Ellie had gotten calmer and calmer about everything. The contractions grew closer together, and Lorne and Kate were forced to give most of their attention to Dr. Weir, leaving Laura to deal with the control room and Peter Sheppard.

The baby was mercifully asleep now. Laura was pacing a bit, trying very hard not to look at certain parts of her boss. “You’re not supposed to be filling the role of nervous father, Lieutenant,” Lorne said while Weir’s body relaxed at the end of a contraction.

“Sorry, sir,” Laura replied. Then she looked at Weir. “Ma’am, is there anything I can do for you?”

Weir shook her head. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I’m just tired. My eyes keep wanting to close.” As though in emphasis, she yawned.

“I’ve got tobasco sauce if you want it,” Laura offered.

Weir looked at her with the strangest expression on her face. “Tobasco sauce?” There was a note in her voice that could only be described as trepidation.

“Don’t ask, ma’am,” Lorne replied.

“No, I want to know why the hell she’s offering me tobasco sauce.”

“It comes in MREs,” he said, with a sigh and a very dirty look in Laura’s direction. “Night sentries have been known to put drops of it in their eyes to keep awake while on duty. The sting keeps them alert.”

“Owww,” Weir replied.

“Elizabeth?” said Ellie.

“No, not this,” she said, waving vaguely at everything below her waist. “Well, yes, all of that, but I was talking about the tobasco sauce. I ought to ban it on the base.”

“Micromanaging a little, aren’t you?” Ellie said.

Weir made a face, and Laura found it weird to be in this room, for the hundredth time since she’d arrived. Not many people in Atlantis got a glimpse of their fearless leader in such unguarded moments. “If you want my job, Ellie,” Dr. Weir replied, “you can have it.”

“Right,” Ellie said. “My first order of business is to put up curtains in my new office.”

“I like that idea,” Lorne put in. Ellie actually blushed.

But before Laura and Kate could jump in to embarrass them further, the technician who was still on duty in the control room started talking over the intercom. “Major Lorne, we’ve got incoming.”

Elizabeth had tensed up again, so Lorne gestured to Laura to handle it. “Sergeant, this is Cadman,” she said. “Lorne can’t come to the phone right now.”

“It’s Colonel Sheppard’s IDC, Lieutenant,” the sergeant replied. “And they’re in – holy crap.”

“Sergeant?” Laura said, alarmed. “Sergeant, what’s going on?”

“Sorry, ma’am, nothing’s particularly wrong,” he said. She could hear laughter in the man’s voice.

There was a pause in which Laura could hear Sheppard’s voice, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then his voice came booming into her earpiece. “Cadman, what the hell?”

“Dr. Weir’s in labor–”

She was cut off by a low, gutteral scream from Weir. “Ellie! My pelvis doesn’t bend like that!”

“The screaming you’re hearing in the background is Dr. Weir,” Laura explained. “She’s having the baby. Now-ish.”

“McKay, get the damn doors open!” he yelled, and Laura winced. “Let me talk to Beckett,” he then demanded.

“Um, he’s locked in his quarters. Sir.”

The pause made Laura wonder if he’d fainted or something. Then he said, very quietly, “Is there a doctor with her at all?”

“Ellie Bartlet’s with her,” she explained. “So’s Heightmeyer and Lorne. Peter’s in here too. Did you know he can sleep through just about anything, sir?”

“Cut the chatter, Lieutenant,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

A few minutes later, a door down the hall crept open, and when it was just barely wide enough, John Sheppard squeezed through. He’d gotten rid of all his weapons and his vest, but the sight of him made Laura burst out laughing. “Shut up,” he said as he ran past her.

A few seconds later, after Lorne hastily got out of the way, Laura walked back in and heard Dr. Weir say: “You got your _face painted_?”

“It was part of a ritual,” Sheppard explained. “How is all this going?”

“You were gone for twelve hours,” she said. “I’ve been in labor for nine and a half. Tell me we have a new trading partner, or you’re sleeping somewhere else for the rest of your life.”

“That’s why my face got painted. You should see Ronon.”

“I hate to break up this little tête-à-tête,” Ellie interrupted, “but Elizabeth, I need you to push.”

“Is it time?” Sheppard asked.

“You may see your son in as little as fifteen minutes.”

Kate, who now had nothing to do while Sheppard was at his wife’s side and Lorne was helping Ellie, came up to Laura’s side. “Did you know it was a boy?” Laura asked.

“Nope,” Kate replied. “Most people in the pool guessed girl.”

They stood there for a minute in silence, while Ellie was giving instructions. Then Laura made the mistake of looking. Turning away quickly, she muttered, “Oh, that is disgusting.”

* * *

  
A little while later, Marcus got on the city-wide and announced that Elizabeth had given birth to a healthy baby boy, weighing seven pounds and six ounces. They had named the baby Josiah William, and mother and child were all doing well.

McKay had gotten all the doors unlocked at about the time Ellie delivered the baby’s shoulders, so Beckett got there just in time to check him over. Though he was clearly unhappy with having missed the event he’d been preparing for over most of a year, he congratulated Ellie on a job well done. She told him that he was welcome to deliver any babies that came from that point on, as she’d never had an interest in obstetrics and probably never would.

Ellie, Marcus, Kate, and Laura left the young family alone shortly thereafter, but they were all on a bit of an adrenaline buzz. They’d all been given the day off, presumably to get some sleep, but that wasn’t happening. Instead, they ended up giggling themselves silly in the lounge where Marcus and Ellie had been watching a movie the previous night. Laura had gotten out her stash of junk food, and despite the fact that they were all adults with lots of responsibilities, they were on a bit of a sugar high.

“What I don’t get,” Laura said, swallowing the bite of candy bar that was in her mouth, “is how Major Lorne managed to win the entire pool. How much money did you get off that, anyway?”

“About six hundred in cash,” Marcus replied, “and a lot of pudding cups. I’m going to need help finishing those off before they go bad.” He poked Ellie in the ribs at that point and tossed her one.

“I think her question was how you managed to guess so much correctly,” Kate said.

“Okay, well, it was a fifty-fifty chance on the sex of the baby,” he explained. “My younger sister was born in ‘76, so I went with seven pounds, six ounces as the weight. Dr. Weir didn’t look like she was having a big baby. My birthday’s on May 4, so I switched the digits around and guessed April 5 for the date.”

“How many people guessed April 4?” Ellie asked, looking at Laura.

“A lot.” Laura looked thoughtful as she opened a pudding cup. “Wonder why that is.”

“Yesterday was Dr. Weir’s birthday,” Ellie replied.

“Poor woman,” said Kate.

“Hey, at least she didn’t get to the really painful part until after her birthday was over.”

“True.”

“Well, I don’t care what anyone says,” Laura said. “Watching a woman give birth with almost no drugs involved is the best contraceptive anyone could ever come up with.”

“You weren’t even watching for most of it,” Ellie pointed out.

“Which is why you’re not allowed to tell me what you were doing to her pelvis.”

“I was just–”

“Not allowed!”

Ellie smiled smugly, and Marcus pulled her closer. It had been a good night.

“So,” Kate said, “how’d you guess the name, Marcus? No one else even got close.”

“Colonel Sheppard mentioned meeting Dr. Weir’s father once,” he replied, “so I knew his name. And Ellie’s said before that Dr. Weir’s been close to her family for years, so naming her kid after President Bartlet sounded like something she’d do.”

“So are you going to get Ellie something really nice with all that money you won?” Laura asked.

Amused, Ellie looked over at him with her spoon in her mouth. “Now, why would I do a thing like that?” Marcus said.

“Don’t play stupid, Marcus,” Kate replied. “It’s unattractive on you.”

He twisted a lock of Ellie’s hair around his fingers. “You have any objections?”

“As long as I get to sleep at some point in the next twenty-eight-point-four-six hours,” Ellie replied, “I don’t care what you do.”

“Has anyone else ever noticed how much of our downtime involves Ellie falling asleep?” Kate remarked.

“Okay, okay, I can take a hint.” Ellie got up and stretched. “Let’s see if Laura’s ruined her appetite with pudding cups. I want breakfast.”

The four of them packed up the junk food and headed to the mess hall. Marcus put his arm around Ellie’s waist as they walked. “At least it was a quiet night,” he said.

Ellie looked at him skeptically. “You call this quiet?”

“Well, the only trouble Colonel Sheppard got into was the result of getting his face painted,” he continued, “Dr. Weir’s fine, the baby’s fine, the Wraith didn’t attack the city while we were all trapped, no one discovered an alien virus, everyone but us got a good night’s sleep. . . Yeah, I’d call it a quiet night.”

Ellie shook her head. “I think you owe me another movie night,” she replied, “this time, preferably not followed by delivering a baby.”

“Ever seen _Dial M for Murder_?” Marcus asked.

“Not without my father talking through it.”

“He’s one of _those_ people?” He stopped walking suddenly. “Did I just say that about a former president?”

Ellie grinned and kissed his cheek. “Yes, yes, you did.”


End file.
